Sleep in a hotel built entirely of ice
The mistake is packing pyjamas. You need almost nothing on, because the thermal bag does the work and body heat does the rest, and the two coldest hours are usually just after you decide you're too warm and unzip it slightly. This is Jukkasjärvi, Swedish Lapland, December to April, a hotel cut from the Torne River and carved anew each season by artists who leave no blueprint behind. You lie under an ice ceiling lit faintly blue, hear nothing, and at six a member of staff wakes you with warm juice before your face gets properly cold — by which point most guests are already glad to be walking to the sauna.
Practical
- Cost
- $250–600 per night
- Best time
- December to April, when the hotel exists at all
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time it takes
- one night, plus travel to remote Lapland
- What people get wrong
- People overdress for the cold room and end up sweating inside the thermal bag; the trick is wearing very little and trusting the bag. Others skip the warm 'hotel' fallback room entirely, assuming one cold night proves something, and end up exhausted the next day.
- With
- One other person